


Bitter Sixteen

by AlabasterChambers



Category: Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons), Trollhunters - Daniel Kraus & Guillermo del Toro
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Tag to episode "Bittersweet Sixteen"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:14:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25900408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlabasterChambers/pseuds/AlabasterChambers
Summary: Tag to "Bittersweet Sixteen". Chased down by the stalkling, Jim isn't saved by AAARRRHHGG!!!! and is instead found by Strickler.A one-shot for the sake of hurt and angst.
Relationships: Barbara Lake & Jim Lake Jr., Barbara Lake & Walter Strickler | Stricklander
Comments: 6
Kudos: 86





	Bitter Sixteen

**21:19 10th October, 2016**

The phone rang. Powerful fluorescent light pounding down from lines and rows of panels along the ceiling illuminated the small cradle of desk, wall, and electronic system for hard medical files. CNA Silvia Zepeda glanced over at the soft, periodic rings which echoed in the empty foyer to the Arcadia Oaks ER.

Sighing, she set her hands on the wheeled office chair and kicked over. She was on hour ten of twelve. She lifted the receiver and held it up. She opened her mouth, the words intended being wrote memorization and constant practice. The person on the other end spoke first.

_“Is Doctor Barbara Lake there?”_

A man’s voice, low and deep, accented with a clear British sound. Usually when people called they were frantic, demanding, inquisitive, or concerned over something which didn’t even classify as a health problem. He was a curiosity, and knowing Dr. Lake’s name made him even more so.

“She is doing rounds right now with her patients, who is this?” Silvia snapped back.

_“This is Walter Strickler. I’m with her son right now, please, may I speak with her?”_

For carrying such a controlled sound, Silvia could hear the tinge of desperation and spot the facade.

“What happened, Mr. Strickler? Do you need medical help?” Silvia stood up, glancing around, a familiar rush starting in her at the knowledge of imminent activity.

_“Please, yes, Dr. Lake, just call her. Her son is, just get her.”_

“Where are you, Walter? I’ll send an ambulance. I promise I will get Dr. Lake as soon as possible, but let me get someone on the way there first.”

_“He’s asking for her. The bridge on Piedmont boulevard.”_

“Don’t worry, Walter, I’m sending someone right now.”

  
  
  
  


**18:54 10th October, 2016**

Dr. Barbara Lake held her phone with a small amount of disappointment and hesitancy. The call to action wouldn’t be ignored, it never had been before. She would pull on her scrubs, comb back her hair, scrounge up her jacket and be out the door in five minutes. Like always. 

It was her son’s birthday though and she had made certain promises.

Jim wouldn’t throw a tantrum like most teenagers might. He would smile, a little bit fragile even if he thought his mother didn’t see that anymore, and he would be concerned. More than all that he would be let down and would try his best to show that he wasn’t.

Barbara bit her lip. She could get dressed and then call her son. Maybe she would digest the whole thing by then and have something to say which would soften the blow of her being absent once again.

Five minutes later, as she had predicted, Barbara Lake was out the door, the necessary phone call put off once again.

  
  
  
  


**20:03 10th October, 2016**

Barbara Lake answered her phone, almost surprised when she heard her son’s voice. He was asking about a ride, one she had promised. She explained, reassuring herself even as her son’s tone took on a more frantic note, a pleading one she rarely heard him use, that she was needed where she was.

The impression of him riding his bike, as he always did, on the way back mollified her. The noise of the ER center around her lulled her sensibilities, the patient in room 109 needed attending, Patty had a chart for her to look over and a treatment needed to be approved for a sick woman. Jim was sixteen afterall, and soon she was slipping the phone back into her pocket, attention driven to another point more necessary than that of a ride home.

  
  


**20:07 10th October, 2016**

As thunder cracked and lightning flashed in the second story room of Mrs. Domzalski’s home a power outage struck a good portion of the southern most part of Arcadia Oaks. Mrs. Domzalski’s lights flickered before turning on again. The precocious woman’s belief in being fully prepared had prompted her to turn on her back up generator earlier in the evening when the storm reports had come through on her network television.

Tobias Domzalski and a preternaturally large troll named Aarghaumont cursed and quickly repowered the television set and gaming console they had been playing.

The logo of a smiling shrimp sushi flashed onto the screen and happy music blared in time with the humanized piece of sushi’s tiny, stationary, hops.

  
  
  


**20:15 10th October, 2016**

About seven miles away from Tobias Domzalski’s house, five horizontally and two vertically, James Lake Jr. reached terminal velocity about fifteen seconds after being struck by lightning. Clad in magical armor, about eighteen seconds later, he struck the ground of the bridge which extended over the main flood control channel of Arcadia Oaks.

Having lost consciousness after being struck by lightning, he did not regain it. The thunder which had been threatening rain the entire evening followed through as the first large drop of rain hit the pavement of the bridge. A scattered grouping followed before moving quickly into a heavy downpour.

Blue light shone, flashing against the morphing effect of the rain, and the armor melted away revealing a simple teenage boy. Sixteen feet away, in the middle of the road, lay his bike.

  
  
  


**20:49 10th October, 2016**

Standing with a straight back and a headache which insisted on heightening with the punctuation of each angry growl of the infamous Bular, Gumm-Gumm prince and heir to whatever shitshow the Order of Janus managed to allocate for him, Stricklander -human name Walter Strickler- tried to maintain a neutral face.

Explaining rules he was implicitly expected to follow with the utmost care to a creature which had no respect for any living or dead being, was a nightmare. No one could not go gallivanting about on a murder spree because, despite Bular’s belief in his immortality, humans had advanced considerably. Conquer the little town of Arcadia Oaks and you would have to face the military might and power of a billion or more ants who had learned to arm themselves with things like nuclear power.

Patience was not a Gumm-Gumm trait, it had never been necessary. Slaughtering and smashing through whatever or whoever stood in your way worked very well thousands of years before. Yet, in the thousands of years since, Bular and his kind, all of troll kind, had done very little to adapt.

The discussion continued, Bular screaming his frustrations, Stricklander standing there wondering if he would be spared by the troll running out of steam or finally smashing him like he did the little goblins when he was bored and none of the other small beasts were looking.

Steam went first, and Bular dismissed him with an expletive and furious hand motion. 

Having maintained human form the whole time, Stricklander, or Walter Strickler as he emerged from the Janus Headquarters, tried to quash his headache. The rain pounding down around him did nothing to improve his mood.

It was, thankfully, a short drive home. 

Until he came to the street impassable because of flooding. Detour brought him to the bridge, the gateway to Troll Market and a stark reminder of how, ironically, the only ones to have a semblance of acceptance for changelings were humans.

An object in the road caused him to swerve and slam on his breaks. His break lights glowed in his periphery through the rearview mirror. The rain, muted by his travel, returned to a dull roar of heavy pattering on his car roof. He took a breath and peered out at the thing which had stopped him. It looked like a bike. He put his car into park and the red glow disappeared.

Opening his door, he stepped quickly toward the bicycle. Some idiot child had abandoned it, probably at the onset of the rain. Raising his head, as if to see if the brat was still near, Strickler saw the shape of a body on the ground just a little ways ahead.

His curiosity was piqued.

Approaching he saw black hair, a blue sweater and then the pale face of his student. Strickler paused, staring. Was the Trollhunter dead?

Kneeling, he placed two fingers against the boy’s carotid artery. 

Not dead then.

He blinked, his centuries old mind ticking through the undeniable possibilities of this event, and of the opportunity which had just entered his hands. The darkness was making it more difficult to see and he let his body morph slightly, eyes changing to a startling, luminous yellow.

The colors enhanced, the scene more obvious. The stalkling had done its job, or at least most of it. Looking around he tried to see if there was any sign of the creature. They were obdurate creatures, never giving up, and if Strickler happened to be standing by its kill it would gladly include him in it.

Standing, he walked to the side of the bridge, hand settling on the rail, and eyes scanning the horizon. A telltale pile of rubble caught his eye. Down in the channel, where water was quickly gathering, lay the remains of the creature.

He made his way back over to the boy. The teenager was still breathing, heart still working. Able to see more clearly, and no longer bothered by the threat of the stalkling, he examined the body before him more thoroughly.

Blood was being washed away from the boy’s head. Strickler reached out, fingers brushing against hair and skull before gently prodding at a contusion.

Eyes opened, dull blue filled with pain, confusion and fright.

“Mom?”

They tracked over him, recognition settling hazily.

“Your mother is not here, young Atlas.”

The boy looked on the verge of tears, might have been as the rain washed away any evidence to support or to void the idea.

It struck the changeling that the boy appeared much more like a boy than he had in the past months since donning the armor of the Trollhunter.

“Please, mom,” the boy whispered.

How sad, to fight and die in a war which wasn’t even his own. Even if Gunmar was released, one troll and his small army of starved and suffering Gumm-Gumms could do no more than provide a distraction to the humans as other great beasts did. James Lake Jr. would suffer for naught.

Strickler looked the boy over again and saw the bulge of the amulet in the boy’s pocket. He reached out, taking it. The agonized expression, somehow still naively full of betrayal, made Strickler hesitate.

He started to shift and the boy’s hand reached out, weakly clawing onto Strickler’s now soaked blazer.

“Don’ leave, please.”

Strickler’s hesitation broke into pity and traitorous thoughts passed through him. He did, afterall, only need the amulet, if Jim survived it might actually even be beneficial, a new Trollhunter wouldn’t be found, one with less mercy, less youth and more reason to care about the war.

He took the boy’s hand and removed it from his jacket.

“Please.”

Strickler paused, holding a gaze which pinned him against a wall. 

A moment later he pulled out his phone and at 21:18 placed a call to the ER where he knew Dr. Lake worked.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**21:49 10th October, 2016**

Barbara’s night had just started to slow down, but even then her mind was filled with the many small tasks that would be the figurative clean up for the night. In her hand was a checklist, in the other a pen. As she rounded the corner she had a small smile of satisfaction from a job well done on her face.

The sound of urgent voices, normal and nothing to be alarmed about, had her raising her head, the question of if she could help on the tip of her tongue. A wheeled stretched was being rushed down the hall. Dr. Madrigal, CNA Zepeda and CNA Dunbar were pushing it. Right behind them was a man Barbara associated vaguely with her son’s school life and not someone that she was immediately able to reconcile to her world of the ER.

A second later and her eyes were drawn to the patient. Young, too small to be a full adult, black hair, the same features which eagerly greeted her every morning with breakfast, lunch and a promise of dinner. It was one which drew up images of a baby, and then a toddler, of a six year old comforting her.

The most she could do was follow the journey with her eyes, face pale as her blood pressure dropped and her hearing seemed to mute everything. A hand was at her elbow, the gurney flew by and passed her the scent of blood and rain.

Barbara blinked sluggishly, turning to look at the man who had now appeared in her way, removing from her vision the unholy sight of what seemed to her an impossibility.

“-ake, Dr. Lake, Dr. Lake, are you alright?”

Barbara swallowed.

“What?” she asked faintly, mind desperately trying to place the face to the name she had heard on multiple occasions.

“I think you should sit down, Dr. Lake.”

The hand at her elbow became slightly more insistent. Barbara tried to take a step and her knees buckled. The man, Jim’s teacher as she just then remembered, held her up.

She was steered, half carried, to a nearby chair. Minutes passed or more, she wasn’t sure, as Barbara carefully started to steel herself. A desire for action that had come almost immediately had been quickly stowed at the thought of every other frantic, crying mother who had only stood in the way of getting proper care to their child.

Barbara let out a choked breath, hand flying to her face. She was that mother now, and never before had she been able to completely empathize with those women. Now her ignorance seemed to mock her.

“Here, Dr. Lake, I believe this will help fortify you.”

Barbara looked at the cup of coffee with something akin to disbelief. She reached out, taking it, the burn of the paper against her hands felt questionably real, as if some fake reality had been suddenly thrust upon her. Looking up she saw for the first time with some clarity the figure of Jim’s favorite teacher, Mr. Strickler. He was soaking wet.

“Where’s Jim now?” she asked, forcing her mind to function.

“I’m not sure, I will ask, but from what I heard them discussing he was being brought to the surgery room.”

Barbara gave a nod, eyes falling to the cup she held in one hand. She raised her other and cradled it with both. That meant she needed to be patient, to wait, to let her friends do their job. Logic, she needed to stay objective for now.

“Were you with him?” she asked, the desire to stay logical meaning she needed to unravel and fill in what had happened.

“I found him on the bridge, I believe he was biking home and was struck by a car.”

Barbara held back a sob, her broken promise, not unusual for any other day of the year, making guilt, already illogically present, bloom.

“I was supposed to drive him home,” Barbara said softly.

Opposite her, in the examination room they’d slipped into, a poster of a cat drew her gaze. This was all her fault, her baby boy was hurt because she had broken her promise. A hand alighted on her shoulder, firm and warm.

“James is strong, Dr. Lake, I am sure he will be fine.”

“Barbara, you can call me Barbara,” she replied softly, the response almost instinctual to how many times she repeated it to coworkers and patients.

“Well, Barbara, you have a strong and capable son. He will not be leaving you any time soon.”

Barbara took in a breath, the words reassuring despite how little they came through to her. She looked back at the coffee and realized that it would be a long night. Her son would need her. She took a sip and looked up at the sympathetic expression on the man’s face. For now it was a waiting game.

  
  
  
  


**00:31 11th October, 2016**

Dr. Noah Madrigal eyed his coworker with pity. Barbara Lake was one of the best workers at the hospital, smart, kind, capable. She took shifts for him when his kids got sick or when he tried for date nights with his wife.

Barbara sat with red eyes but a stiff upper lip, face clear of hysteria. Explaining it all in layman’s terms would be an insult, and he wasn’t entirely sure of her relationship with the man who had found Jim. To explain in general when the woman was perfectly capable of understanding on her own would be an insult.

Instead he offered out the results to her, a mass of files quickly drawn up for both the benefit of Dr. Lake and in keeping in accordance with the necessary record keeping. She took the papers with shaking hands and began to read through them.

Minutes ticked by and police knocked at the door of the office. All three adults looked over.

“They are just here for the report. It looks like someone hit James with their car. If that is true that would make it a hit and run. They just need a statement from you, Mr. Strickler.”

“Of course,” he replied, moving away from Barbara and walking out with Dr. Madrigal.

Barbara continued reading and Dr. Madrigal reentered the room. By the time she had finished, Strickler had also come back in.

“I’m sorry, Barbara,” he said softly before tacking on, “but it does look hopeful, and in the next twenty four hours things could really turn around.”

She gave a short nod but didn’t meet her coworker’s concerned gaze as she stood and started to exit. Mr. Strickler gave him a tight smile and followed after her.

They walked down the hallway toward the ICU. 

In the room Jim was almost alien in appearance. Barbara had seen plenty of people nestled among the machinery and improvised attempts to prolong human life, but never her son and it struck a different chord in her seeing it now.

She stood next to his bedside, eyes tracing over his whole body.

“What is the verdict?” Strickler asked.

“For now, we just worry about him waking up.”

Strickler let out a soft ‘hmmm’.

As she took in what was possibly the most important part of her life, Barbara couldn’t help but consider what the unhappy future could be. Of her baby never waking up, or of the pressure and damage to his brain being too much, of losing everything about him which she was so proud of, for him to be just a body.

She let out a soft exhalation and heard the shift of clothing not her own. She’d almost forgotten Mr. Strickler was there, had been for this entire process. She felt guilty for yet another thing, dragging this poor man through all of this.

“Thank you, by the way,” she said, turning around and facing him.

He looked mildly taken off guard.

“I don’t want to think about what would have happened if you hadn’t found him, Mr. Strickler.”

His surprise melted into a soft, kind smile.

“You may call me Walter.”

She smiled back, but the bitter thing slipped off quickly.

  
  
  
  


**07:22 11th October, 2016**

Ushered in and out of the room based on doctors and nurses attending to him, Barbara stayed, and Walter stayed with her.

In his repository of knowledge, he could find little to support his current course of action. Looked at in any way it was bad. It would take a lot of conniving on his end to explain it away. He could have occluded inaction by just never speaking about finding the boy and having left him there.

He had the amulet, but questions would arise as to why he hadn’t returned it immediately to Bular. Most wouldn’t understand any reasoning for not having killed the boy.

For now, his poorly fabricated plan was to just not say anything to anyone. Feign surprise when they mentioned the boy’s injury, or just mention it later and eschew a few details.

Barbara sat next to him, watching young Atlas with the intensity of a mother’s worrying gaze. Walter for a moment let himself be a part of the moment, a support, a part of what was there. The role interested him. He offered to get more coffee, something to eat. Barbara thanked him, insisting he didn’t need to. He insisted he did.

Walking out, he felt oddly alive and involved, not so much a part of the peanut gallery he’d occupied for centuries.

When he returned Barbara was crying. From her appearance it was a desperate relief and a deep joy. Jim had opened his eyes.

  
  
  


**07:28 11th October, 2016**

It seemed like an eternity had passed since yesterday evening when Barbara had been called in. Sitting at her son’s bedside she couldn’t help but feel detached from reality and time.

Walter had left a few minutes earlier to get food and coffee. It didn’t matter.

Gaze unfocused, but pointed in the direction of her son, she almost didn’t notice the movement. She blinked, saw another set of eyes blink and felt more emotions rush through an already tightly strung body. She stood up and approached, fingers reaching out and curling around her son’s right hand.

She smiled at him.

“Hey kiddo.”

He blinked, eyes showing a level of clarity which was extremely reassuring. She moved a little and his eyes tracked her. Her smile grew.

“You’re going to be alright, I’m here.”

**Author's Note:**

> Possibly a lead on for a longer story where Jim struggles with recovery, Strickler with which side he takes, and everyone with the Trollhunter being down and out.


End file.
